


Hot Child in the City

by prelives



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: Awesome Ladies Ficathon, Challenge Response, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-07
Updated: 2010-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-10 10:36:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prelives/pseuds/prelives
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She thinks of Washington as their city.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hot Child in the City

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Awesome Ladies Ficathon](http://ineffort.livejournal.com/199061.html) for the [prompt:](http://ineffort.livejournal.com/199061.html?thread=5000085#t5000085) "Gilmore Girls, Rory/(Jess), DC." This is not quite as polished as it could be, but I'm pretty fond of it anyway. Also: for those who don't know, Christopher Buckley is a writer who primarily writes political satires that take place in DC.

Rory misses Dean. She does, _really_. When she walks down the narrow streets of Georgetown, she tries to imagine Dean beside her, hands clasped together tightly. It never feels quite right, despite her best efforts. Like Stars Hollow, Dean is safe and familiar, out of place in the fast-paced, impersonal atmosphere of Washington.

It's easy, it's surprisingly easy to conjure up Jess' face next to her on the metro or imagining the two of them hunting around the used bookshops on Capitol Hill on Saturday afternoons, arguing over which was Hemmingway's best book and whether or not J.D. Salinger was overrated. (He wasn't.) Here, they wouldn't be "Rory Gilmore, Good Girl of the Decade" and "Jess Mariano, Bad Boy Extraordinaire", but just Rory and Jess, two more anonymous teenagers in town for the summer. She watches the heat rise from the sidewalks, and imagines him tracing the beads of sweat down her neck with his fingers, kissing him and the taste of summer and the city in the back of her throat.

She thinks of Washington as their city. It's kind of a bizarre hybrid between New York City and Stars Hollow, quirky and almost too smart for its own good, but diverse and teeming with activity and excitement. She composes letters in her head to Jess, telling him about finding the diner in Adams Morgan that she's _sure_ Luke wouldn't approve of, and the other overly hyper summer interns who are giving Paris a run for her money in ambition and enthusiasm.

In the end, leaving Washington feels like leaving Jess. No matter how she plays it out in her head, she doesn't know how to figure Jess into her life in Stars Hollow. Dean fits into that picture perfectly, like the last piece of a puzzle. It's easier in Washington, where no one quite fits and everyone's got jagged edges.

It isn't until she's finally alone in her room that Rory finds the book. It's a Christopher Buckley book, sitting unwrapped on her bed, with a neatly handwritten note on top: _I hope your time in DC was nothing like this one. – J.M._ She thinks about what her time in Washington would include, and she can only think about _him_, and maybe her own edges aren't so smooth either.


End file.
